Sites that follow beta versions of Windows, such as winbeta.org, as well as more mainstream sites are claiming that the final version of Windows 8 Enterprise has already leaked onto file-sharing sites. "It looks like our first leak has occurred, as Windows 8 Enterprise N has appeared on torrenting sites and has been confirmed by several that it's the real deal," said winbeta.org in a post earlier today.
Even as almost everything else in technology changes at breakneck speeds, e-mail continues to stay relatively constant. Google changed the game when it introduced Gmail in 2004, but most of the browser-based services like Hotmail, Yahoo, and AOL have barely evolved. It's not often we get a shakeup in the email world, but say hello to Microsoft's new free email account, Outlook.com. It'll eventually be replacing Hotmail, but you might want to grab your name now. There's a new, clean look and it ties in your social media contacts.
Microsoft has confirmed that Surface tablets will arrive October 26 along with Windows 8. The next version of the operating system, Windows 8, will be generally available on October 26, 2012. At that time, Microsoft will begin selling the Surface, a series of Microsoft-designed and manufactured hardware devices, Microsoft said in its annual report filed this week with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
Microsoft spelled out acceleration improvements in Windows 8, in a blog post Monday. Needless to say, Microsoft says the overall experience is a lot snappier. The latest Building Windows 8 entry, penned by Rob Copeland, the group program manager at Microsoft's graphics team, is titled Hardware accelerating everything: Windows 8 graphics. Some context is first provided at the top in order to illustrate how Window 8 "builds on the well-established foundations of DirectX graphics" in Windows 7.
Still running XP or Vista and eying Office 2013? Sorry, you're out of luck. Unveiled Monday, the upcoming new Office suite won't support Windows XP or Vista, meaning users who need or want Office 2013 will have to upgrade to Windows 7 or Windows 8. Microsoft confirmed the tighter requirements on its Office 2013 Preview Technet page. Only Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows Server 2008 R2, and Windows Server 2012 will be able to run the new suite.
October 26 will be the date Windows 8 will be available preloaded on new PCs and also to those purchasing it through one of the upgrade programs Microsoft has announced recently. Microsoft officials shared the exact date on July 18 with the thousands of Microsoft salespeople attending the Microsoft Global Exchange Conference in Atlanta, according to a July 18 post on the Windows team blog.
Microsoft's Office 2013 reaches its public Consumer Preview milestone yesterday, available for end users to test on Windows 7 and Windows 8 PCs. Microsoft is calling its Office 2013 suite, codenamed Office 15, a "modern" version of the software that is used on a billion PCs worldwide. Cloud-connected and designed to work well on Windows 8 tablets, Office 2013 signals a shift to document collaboration and anywhere any device access. Notably, Microsoft is introducing an on-demand subscription version of Office 2013 that can be streamed from any Windows 7 or Windows 8 PC, with the ability to sync settings and documents.
Microsoft has launched Bing Fund, an angel fund with an incubator program that will make Microsoft resources available to startups and potentially provide it with acquisition targets in the future, Microsoft said. Bing Fund is an angel fund for startups "building online or mobile experiences." Eligible startups must be mature enough to have a business plan and a working prototype of their product, according to Microsoft. They must also have momentum.
File History is a new feature of Windows 8 that Microsoft revealed in a new article on the Building Windows 8 blog. It is basically a file backup service that is monitoring select locations for file changes to automatically create a backup whenever files in monitored locations get changed. If you want, it is an undo option for files so that you can restore them to a previous state.
Microsoft yesterday patched 16 vulnerabilities, including one in Windows that's been exploited for weeks and two in Internet Explorer 9 (IE9) in the first-in-years back-to-back browser update. Of Tuesday's nine security updates, three were rated critical, Microsoft's most-severe threat ranking, while the others were pegged as important, the next-most-serious label. Among the products patched yesterday were all versions of Windows; Office 2003, 2007 and 2010 on Windows; Office for Mac 2011; and IE9, Microsoft's newest browser that the company has touted as its most modern and most secure.